Air India Group recently announced a senior management rejig ahead of the merger of Vistara with Air India. As part of this exercise, Vistara chief executive Vinod Kanan will continue in the role of Chief Integration Officer post-merger, a position he has also held during the process of merging the two entities.
Apart from this, he will be a member of the management committee and directly report to Air India CEO Campbell Wilson, a statement said.
Full-service carrier Vistara, a 51:49 per cent joint venture between Tata Sons and Singapore Airlines, is all set to merge with Air India on November 12.
It added that Deepak Rajawat, Chief Commercial Officer of Vistara will assume the role of Chief Financial Officer at the low-cost arm Air India Express, reporting to its chief executive officer Aloke Singh and also support Air India Group CFO Sanjay Sharma in strategic initiatives and projects.
Consequently, Vikas Agarwal, the present CFO of Air India Express, would shift to a new role in Air India, it said.
Senior vice president for flight operations at Vistara Hamish Maxwell will take an advisory role to the Air India Express chief executive, Aloke Singh, following the statement, as Pushpinder Singh, Chief Operation Officer of the Air India Express returns to flying.
The company said that it will announce a successor to Singh in due course.
In addition, Deepa Chadha and Vinod Bhatt, senior vice president HR & Corporate Affairs and Chief Information Officer of Vistara respectively will assume other senior positions in other Tata group companies. The statement further said that Vistara CFO Niyant Maru, who had continued beyond his superannuation date to see through the completion of the merger, would retire at the end of his current term.
According to reports, all Air India Group CXO and reporting lines roles remain unaffected. “Over the past two years, the four Tata airlines have worked hard to prepare for and execute one of the most complex mergers in aviation history, consolidating from four airlines to two in the context of dramatic growth and wholesale transformation. As we now approach the end of that process, have formalised a Group leadership comprising colleagues from all four antecedent airlines to drive the next phase of our journey,” said Wilson.
